The Homestory Cup is held twice a year in Germany where 32 of the world’s best Starcraft 2 players band together to battle out for the title, and a total of $20,000 in prizes. The tenth cup is held in Krefeld’s club “Königsburg and began on November 13th where it will run until the 16th while viewers watch the battles in person and via livestream on the internet.

Competitors:

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

TaeJae

Ty

MC

Petraeus

lash

PartinG

KangHO

HyuN

Kane

Harstem

ToD

Hasu0bs

Socke

Stephano

DIMAGA

qxc

Sacsri

DeMusliM

Miniraiser

Dayshi

First

Grubby

MaNa

Jaedong

BlinG

TLO

Bunny

Snute

Ret

Yoda

JJAKJI

Lilbow

HomeStory uses a 1v1 format with group stages and a single elimination bracket. In the first round, two players are eliminated from each Group, with Day One covering battles by Groups A through D.

Group A Winners

TaeJae

[Image courtesy of Team Liquid]

Yun “TaeJae” Young Seo is a 19 year old from South Korea who’s been making a name for himself since 2010 and has since racked up multiple wins in over 32 championships. He’s also competed in the HomeStory Cup since 2012, and won it a total of four times, so it’s no surprise to most that he moved into the second round on the opening day. TaeJae’s plays Terran and scored 2-0 against both Kane and Sacsri.

Sacsri

[Image courtesy of Flickr)

Sacsri is a newcomer to the HomeStory Cup, with three championships to his name. Sacsri or Lee Yeh Hoon is a 22 year old from South Korea playing Zerg in the HomeStory cup. He scored a 2-0 against Bling, and 2-0 against Kane, after loosing one round at 0-2 against TaeJae.

Group B Winners

TY

[Image courtesy of Team Liquid]

Ty or Jun Tae Yang was one of the youngest programmers ever to be drafted by WeMadeFox, but didn’t make his first televised appearance until two years later in 2011. Since then he’ sranked 4th and 2nd in two major matches, but has few other achievements to his name. Ty is playing Terran in the HomeStory Cup, where he won 2-0 against Harstem and TLO.

TLO

[Image courtesy of Foxy]

TLO or Dario Wünsch is a 24 year old Gernam StarCraft player most famous for his use of tactics and confusion methods to win games. He’s placed high in 7 championships since 2011, but only won one in 2011. He also barely managed to make it into the second round in HomeStory playing Zerg with a 2-1 win against DeMusliM, a 2-1 win against Harstem, and a 0-2 loss against TY.

Group C

MC

[Image courtesy of Kevin Chang/Team Liquid]

As the first Protoss player to move into round 2 so far in Homestory MC or Jan Min Chul is definitely one to pay attention to. The 24 year old South Korean typically plays is also personally sponsored by Global eSports Management, and known for his aggressive playing style. He’s also placed in over 30 major tournaments and won a total of nine, including one HomeStory championship. MC won 2-1 against ToD and 2-0 against Bunny .

Bunny

[Image courtesy of DreamHack]

Patrick Brix “Bunny” plays Terran and scored 2-1 against MiniRaiser, and 2-0 on a second, final match with Miniraiser. He also lost 0-2 against MC. Bunny has a total of 8 first place wins in major championships, with several other second and third place rankings, making him a definite competitor to watch out for.

Group D

Snute

[Image courtesy of Helena Kristiansson/esportphoto.com]

Jens Aasgarde is a 24 year old Norwegian playing as Snute and competing with Zerg. With a total of 15 first place wins and a 2012 Homestory Cup win, he’s definitely one of the major competitors. Snute’s score is also holding solid at 2-0 against Dayshi and HasObs.

HasuObs

[Image courtesy of Creative Commons]

HasuObs or Dennis Snyder is the captain of Team Germany and plays Protoss, where he’s competeted in 14 major and premier tournaments, taking home 6 wins. HasuObs won 2-1 against Petraeus, lost 0-2 against Snute, and won 2-1 against Dayshi.

The first day of the HomeStory cup is over and so far, it’s been a lot of fun, and with two more days still to go, there’s a lot more to come. Most of the Day 1 Group predictions are also incredibly accurate, with gamers consistently picking 6 out of the 8 finalists correctly.

With just one day to go until the start of the latest Insomnia 53 festival, we thought we’d give you the scoop on this awesome event! Since its inception in 1999, the Insomnia gaming festival, which is the largest in the UK, has grown exponentially. It attracts visitors from all over the world, and there esports competitions attract plenty of big names. Aside from the esports tournaments – there’s loads of other events and competitions taking place this year – there’s just so much to do!

eSports

Of course, esports is a massive part of the event – and there are a huge selection across all three days. We have: League of Legends, CS:GO, Dota 2, Hearthstone, COS: Advanced Warfare, and Halo 2: Anniversary.

You can see the GiffGaff LoL final on Friday at 6.30 GMT, while the finals for the other games all occur on Sunday afternoon and evening.

Other Comps

For those who want to do something other than esports, you can compete in the cosplay contest, or the card tournaments – which include Yu-Gi-Oh! and the Cardfight!! Vanguard tournament.

BYOC

Bring Your Own Console! Whether it’s a pc, mac, laptop, or a console, bring it along and set it up in the BYOC LAN halls. Game to your heart’s content. This is also a great option for retro gamers. Team up with others via a LAN, or play alone. The choice is yours!

The Exhibition Hall

The exhibition hall is the main event – and is full of exciting things! There are free-to-enter tournaments, trade stands, consoles to try out, and pre-release editions of games to try. You can also shop the awesome retail area. The Exhibition Stage is home this year to an array of special guests, live shows, and exhibitors. This year, exhibitors include, but are not limited to: Game, Razer, Chill Blast, We Got Games, Gamereactor, Ultra Gaming Bus, and Riot Games.

Awesome Extras

And that’s not all! Aside from all that excitement, you can play in the retro gaming hall, complete with classic consoles, games, and even monitors, featuring more than 30 years’ worth of classic gaming history. Alternatively, head to the Indie zone where you can try out some of the very best Indie games around – and chat to the developers and studio representatives. Want a break from electronics? Head to the Tabletop Gaming Zone where you can interact with other players while you play card games and board games of all kinds! You can also check out the dedicated Minecraft zone – where there’s prizes to be won and games to be played. And – don’t forget to catch the panel talks and meet and greet sessions with some BIG names from around the industry!

We at DingIt will be tweeting live from the event – and we’ll be posting some awesome pics! We’ll be covering the live events, so be sure to follow us. Keep an eye on the blog, too, as we’ll be doing some awesome write-ups!

During the playoffs PartinG annihilated the famous foreigner zerg favorite Scarlett 3-0. And then managed to 5-0 Axioms beloved terran Ryung.

In the winners interview with PartinG which was translated by James Mal Song, he thanked ASL for the lovely tournament, and said it was easy mode and he’s happy to accept the money.

During the round of 16 the map overgrowth was deemed uninhabitable for at least 10,000 years due to the amount of nuclear radiation thanks to Root Gaming SuperNova. It was counted that he launched at least 12 nuclear missles vs mYinsanity Sacsri. Watch the game here: http://youtu.be/Zn33KVpkEHA?list=PLvfLbH1Uzy-3QabqdqzxVjRoWAxGaH4bA

The Season was amazing and fun. Thanks to DingIt for sponsoring the event and allowing us to recruit such high caliber players for the community to enjoy. Most people were very entertained! I know i was every time i got to observe. 🙂

After a long day, or night for the European viewers, the first day of BlizzCon comes to an end. Watching battles and in-game interviews, while fighting against lag, we now know who our final four are. We started the day with eight of the best StarCraft players in the business, and slowly whittled it down until only the strongest survived. This leaves it all to play for going into the last day of WCS in the 2014 season. Here are your last men standing…

Though MMA certainly wasn’t the underdog going into his match against Bomber, not many people expected the sheer dominance he displayed today. Bomber was not having a bad day, he didn’t make major or critical mistakes – MMA was just so on point that it’s hard to see how he could’ve lost the series at all. With it all ending 3-1 in favour of Team Acer’s MMA, there’s a lot of speculation that we may have seen our Champion crowned already.

SK Telecom T1 Classic [P]

[Classic – Credit GOMTV]

In our only PvP of the day, we also saw the only five game series as well. It definitely was an even match up, with many of the games swinging in between both Classic and CJ herO, but eventually the ChinToss reigned true.

Semi Final 1: Team Acer MMA [T] vs. SK Telecom T1 Classic [P]

This is certainly going to be an interesting series as the two have never played each other in an offline tournament before. Looking at their general gameplay, Classic should technically be better off – an overall win rate of 65% against Terran versus MMA’s 62.82% against Protoss. That isn’t, however, a large enough margin to call the game said and done just yet though. MMA has had some ups and downs throughout the year but he’s been playing on form recently, taking home the latest WCS EU title, whereas Classic’s last title was in Season 2. Our money will be on MMA for this game due his spectacular performance through these Global Finals so far, but no one can ever count Classic out until the fat lady sings.

The last remaining Zerg of the tournament is remaining still, showing an effortless victory against San, finishing him off in merely three games. San, who only last week 3-0’d jjakji to secure his place in the Round of 8, couldn’t find a way to break The Ling King. Life, not one known for his ZvP, has definitely turned a few heads going into his next series, especially as he is known for his ZvT.

The final game of the night was not only a battlefield onscreen but also behind the scenes. Plagued with lag, broken streams, and even keyboards, this series took an exceptionally long time to finish. It was one hundred percent worth the wait though, as we saw some of the most intense TvT we’ve seen all year. No one could count INnoVation out, as you never can, but Taeja has beaten INnoVation eight out of the twelve times they’ve met in the past. Those figures speak for themselves, and today it showed.

Semi Final 2: StarTale Life [Z] vs. Team Liquid Taeja [T]

This is a rivalry that goes way, way back to Wings of Liberty. These two have met a total of fourteen times! Playing a massive thirty seven maps overall. But this is where things start to get one sided – twenty five of those maps have gone to Taeja and eleven of those wins to him as well. That is not just winning, that is demolishing. Especially when you consider the fact he’s won every single match they’ve competed in since 2012. The numbers speak for themselves, but can Life find it in himself to break this streak? His performance so far this week has been worthy of that hope, and we’ll find that out on Saturday.

Summing up what we’ve seen so far is hard to do without just linking you to the VoD and telling you it’s best to watch it for yourself. But one step better than that would be tuning into the Grand Finals on Saturday the 8th of November to see who will win the crown that has been so hotly contested. It doesn’t end there though, with Legacy of the Void being announced and multiplayer balance changes being scrutinised now they’ve been made public, there’s a lot to talk about. So Follow us @DingItTV and hear what we have to say about the matter as we Live Tweet throughout the day.